falling feathers ~ Loredana

[Artemis]

The vastness of space. Silent, as always. No air, no atmosphere meant no sound. To some, the silence would be unnerving, just the simple fact that there was nothing to be heard at all would be unnatural. But among others, the silence was peaceful and serene, destroying the doubts of a certain symbiont pair and letting them continue with ease. The Wanderer cut silently through the darkness, carrying the cheerful symbiont pair to their next destination.

"Artemis!" The call resounded through the extensive network of corridors. "Artemis, where are you?!" Footsteps echoed off the metal framework as Aephir turned to the door and peered out of it. "Artemis?" he called again, trying to locate his symbiont. He let out a frustrated sigh and started off. The ever-curious Ysthi had probably gotten himself stuck in an air duct again. Aephir had had an insanely hard time reaching him to get him out, and it didn't help that Artemis had been roaming around the ship for hours beforehand.

"Artemis!" Aephir called again. There was a sudden weight on his shoulders, then it disappeared, replaced by a slithering sort of feeling on his skin. "There you are." he laughed, looking down into the open neck of his shirt to see Artemis' head draped over his shoulder in his usual position.

The dragon grinned at him and raised his head slightly off of Aephir's skin, becoming three-dimensional. "Sorry about that, I got sort of... caught up." he replied, looking around. "I was exploring some of the new additions to the ship, and I got caught in some wires--"

"Well you're out of it now." Aephir cut him off, knowing that the Ysthi was quite long-winded when it came to explanations. "I've got something to show you." Aephir started off towards the bridge.

"What is it?" Artemis asked, excitement clear in his voice. "Are we there? Have we finally gotten there?" He had to repress the urge to jump out of Aephir's collar and run off towards the bridge. Aephir would get them there in due time, and they had plenty of time to explore the planet below them. Getting to the bridge, Artemis was stunned by the beauty of the planet's surface.

It was mostly blue, with a few scattered, greenish landmasses floating among the oceans. The north and south poles had thick layers of ice covering them. On the dark side of the planet, there were little pinpoints of light sparkling through the darkness, showing where the land was. There were white, puffy clouds casting their shadows onto the surface of the blue planet, and all the while, the atmosphere surrounded the planet in a pale blue halo.

"It's..." Artemis mumbled, speechless. It really was beautiful. It wasn't like the rather bland planets they'd seen when they first entered this system. The first thing they'd seen was a little rock just floating about in space. Then there was the rather big blue one that completely dwarfed the little rock one. A slightly smaller, more blue green one was next, and then an orange one with huge rings after that. The next one dwarfed them all, a giant ball of orange swirling gas with a huge red storm towards the southern end. Then, they had quite a bit of fun dodging asteroids, pushing their piloting skills and the maneuverability of the Wanderer to their limits. They'd been expecting another gas giant, but instead there was a little red thing that floated before them. And then they stumbled upon this blue beauty. "It's amazing... When can we go?! I want to go!"

Aephir merely laughed and pulled up a picture of the native species: humans. "First, we have to be reminded of our research." he said, pointing at the screen. "The humans call their planet 'Earth'. It's a fully established Level Five planet, and things are going pretty good there." Aephir lectured, and Artemis sighed.

"Can we just go now?" he whined, jumping out of Aephir's collar and running over to the controls.

Aephir seemed about to protest, but he really wanted to touch down on the planet's surface and explore as well. "Alright... Start her up." he said, and Artemis practically squealed, running all around and starting up the engines. He could hardly contain his excitement; they had specifically picked Earth out for its sights, its differing cultures among the same species, and the sheer beauty of it all. Things were going to be great. They would have so much fun with touring Earth.

Suddenly, the engines sputtered, turned over a couple of times, then died. Artemis was immediately assessing the problem, and the situation wasn't looking good. They had already entered the blue planet's atmosphere, as well as its gravity field. With the engines offline, there would be no way to keep themselves from crashing in a ball of white-hot flame.

"Oh, not good." Artemis muttered to himself, frantically running about trying to rectify the situation. "The engines have gone and we're about to crash." he explained to Aephir, who immediately ran out the door, headed for the engine room. "Gaining speed... Oh this is not good." Artemis did the best he could, and as Aephir came back into the room with the bad news, the best he could do was to aim for a landmass and to keep them from hitting any innocent people. He found a suitable forest on an island north of a landmass with what looked like a boot on it and directed the Wanderer towards it. He and Aephir said their goodbyes, knowing that the ship's hull wouldn't stand such a crash.

It was a simple enough thing, really, and he didn't feel much of it. The first impact knocked him unconscious, and the rest of them as the Wanderer tore up the ground in its slide merely just bounced him around. As he slowly regained consciousness, he became aware of the bumps and bruises that he'd suffered, the cracked scales and the broken foreleg. He limped over to Aephir's crumpled form, quickly checking vitals, but it was no use.

The Aetulen was dead. His host was gone. And there was nothing he could do about it.

He didn't know how long he sat there. He woke himself from his stupor only when he felt that there was an hour left of the nine hours that he could be off his host. Aephir was dead, so Artemis resigned himself to death as well. He wouldn't be mourned. Nobody would find his body. Dead Ysthi merely faded from existence, going two-dimensional and disappearing from the face of the universe. They would only find Aephir, and hopefully they would give him a proper burial. A proper ceremony. Because that was what he deserved.

On impulse, Artemis stood and limped towards a hole in the Wanderer's hull, through which he could see the blackened earth, but also the pale blue sky and the green of the trees. He emerged from the wreckage and stared up at the blue vastness, without a cloud to be seen. He would die here, and it would be alright. He would get to see his parents and the comrades that had died in the war. He would get to see Aephir again, and they would go on their romps around the universe, just like they always had. Artemis closed his eyes and bowed his head, waiting for the end to come.